Microsoft’s SkyDrive now serves 250 million users

Microsoft’s SkyDrive

It’s a happy day for Microsoft. The company has announced an important landmark for its cloud storage service—SkyDrive now serves over 250 million users across various apps.

Microsoft credits part of its growth to the launch of Windows 8 in October last year. The company says about 50 million more users have begun using SkyDrive since Windows 8 hit the market.

It must be noted that Microsoft has gone all out to integrate SkyDrive with most of its services, including Microsoft Office. Earlier this year, Microsoft made SkyDrive the default save location for the new Office suite.

What a milestone!

Windows 8 also has SkyDrive integration right out of the box. The SkyDrive app on Windows 8 features the blocky Modern UI design as well as SkyDrive data in its Charm functionality.

Microsoft has also been issuing regular updates for the app. After a long stand-off with Apple, Microsoft finally released an update for its SkyDrive app for iOS early last month. The update came after nearly 10 months of no love for the app.

Microsoft took so long to update SkyDrive because it was having a tussle with Apple over the revenue generated by the cloud storage service. Apple wanted a 30 percent cut in the revenue generated by sales of SkyDrive storage space via the iOS app, while Microsoft was opposed to the idea.

After many, many months of back and forth between the two companies, they finally resolved their differences. It is not clear how they managed to reach an understanding, but SkyDrive version 3.0 is finally up and running for iOS devices.

The only difference carried forward from the previous arrangement was that users are still not able to buy more storage space for SkyDrive through iOS devices. If you wish to expand your SkyDrive storage space, you will still need to log-in to the website and make a purchase.

Microsoft seems well aware of the dangers of stagnating on any platform, and that seems to have contributed to SkyDrive reaching the 250 million user mark. Of course, having SkyDrive come pre-packaged with Windows doesn’t hurt either.